contevscontraWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: conte is a noun, contra is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“conte” is a noun and “contra” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,860
“conte” frequency rank
#13,117
“contra” frequency rank
49977
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature conte contra
Definition Graf gegen, wider

Letter map: conte vs contra

Shared letters muted; letters that set conte and contra apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
conte
6 ch
contra

Grammar separator: conte vs contra

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: conte is anoun and contraapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49977, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

conte is recorded at frequency rank #36,860, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. contra is at rank #13,117, tagged as aprep, pronounced [ˈkɔntʁa].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 49977, this pair ranks #1,191,263 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of conte vs contra

Shared letters: cnot. Private to "conte": e. Private to "contra": ar.

"conte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "contra" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • contecconte · cnote · conet · connte · contte · cotne · ocnte
  • contraccontra · cnotra · conntra · conrta · contar · contrra · conttra · cotnra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "conte" and "contra" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "conte" is a noun and "contra" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "conte" or "contra" show up more?
"contra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,117 in our German list, against #36,860 for "conte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "conte" and "contra". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "conte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "contra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,191,263 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "conte" and "contra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conte vs puzzles". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,191,263 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list